m to forget his feet that
were beginning to pain him. But a long distance would still have to be
traversed, and his eyes wandered over the outlines of the round-backed
hills divided by steep valleys, so much alike that he asked himself how
it was that Jesus could distinguish one from the other; but his guide
seemed to divine the way as by instinct, and Paul struggled on,
encouraged by a promise of a half-hour's rest as soon as they reached
the summit of the hill before them. But no sooner had they reached it
than Jesus said, come behind this rock and hide thyself quickly. And
when he was safely hidden Jesus said, now peep over the top and thou'lt
see a shepherd leading his sheep along the hillside. What of that? Paul
answered, and Jesus said, not much, only I am thinking whether it would
be well to let him go his way without putting a question to him, or
whether it would be better to leave thee here while I go to him with the
intention of finding out from him if there be tidings going about that
one Paul of Tarsus, a spreader of great heresies, a pestilential fellow,
a stirrer-up of sedition, has been seen wandering, trying to find his
way back to Caesarea.

The shepherd was passing away over the crest of the hill when Jesus
said, the pretext will come to me on my way to him. Do thou abide here
till I return, and Paul watched him running, lurching from side to side
over the rough ground towards the shepherd, still far away. Will he
overtake him before he passes out of sight and hearing? he asked
himself.

The sheep were running merrily, and the breeze carried down to Paul's
ear the sound of the pipe, setting him thinking of the Patriarchs and
then of his guide; only mad, he said, in one corner of his brain,
convinced that he returned to the Essenes because he had said in
Jerusalem that he was the Messiah. A strange blasphemy, he muttered, and
yet not strange enough to save the brethren from the infection of it. It
would seem that they believe with him that he suffered under Pilate,
without knowing, however, for what crime he was punished; and a terrible
curiosity arose in Paul to learn the true story of his guide's life,
who, he judged, might be led into telling it if care were taken not to
arouse his suspicion. But these madmen are full of cunning, he said to
himself, and when Jesus returned Paul asked if he had discovered from
the shepherd if an order was abroad from Jericho to arrest two itinerant
preachers on thei